3
In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken
up by Mr. Stanley in person. Her father's ideas of
expostulation were a little harsh and forcible, and over
the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gas
chandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like
the mace in Parliament, he and his daughter contrived
to have a violent quarrel. She had intended to be
quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage from
the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was
more than flesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection
was over and that she was coming home submissively.
In his desire to be emphatic and to avenge
himself for his over-night distresses, he speedily became
brutal, more brutal than she had ever known him before.
“A nice time of anxiety you've given me, young
lady,” he said, as he entered the room. “I hope you're
satisfied.”
She was frightened —his anger always did frighten
her —and in her resolve to conceal her fright she carried
a queen-like dignity to what she felt even at the time
was a preposterous pitch. She said she hoped she had
not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged
to take, and he told her not to be a fool. She tried to
keep her side up by declaring that he had put her into
an impossible position, and he replied by shouting,
“Nonsense! Nonsense! Any father in my place would
have done what I did.”
Then he went on to say: “Well, you've had your
little adventure, and I hope now you've had enough of it.
So go up-stairs and get your things together while I
look out for a hansom.”
To which the only possible reply seemed to be, “I'm
not coming home.”
“Not coming home!”
“No!” And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person,
Ann Veronica began to weep with terror at herself.
Apparently she was always doomed to weep when she
talked to her father. But he was always forcing her to
say and do such unexpectedly conclusive things. She
feared he might take her tears as a sign of weakness.
So she said: “I won't come home. I'd rather starve!”
For a moment the conversation hung upon that
declaration. Then Mr. Stanley, putting his hands on
the table in the manner rather of a barrister than a
solicitor, and regarding her balefully through his glasses
with quite undisguised animosity, asked, “And may I
presume to inquire, then, what you mean to do? —how
do you propose to live?”
“I shall live,” sobbed Ann Veronica. “You needn't
be anxious about that! I shall contrive to live.”
“But I am anxious,” said Mr.
Stanley, “I am
anxious. Do you think it's nothing to me to have my
daughter running about London looking for odd jobs
and disgracing herself?”
“Sha'n't get odd jobs,” said Ann Veronica, wiping
her eyes.
And from that point they went on to a thoroughly
embittering wrangle. Mr. Stanley used his authority,
and commanded Ann Veronica to come home, to which,
of course, she said she wouldn't; and then he warned
her not to defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then
commanded her again. He then said that if she would
not obey him in this course she should “never darken
his doors again,” and was, indeed, frightfully abusive.
This threat terrified Ann Veronica so much that she
declared with sobs and vehemence that she would never
come home again, and for a time both talked at once
and very wildly. He asked her whether she understood
what she was saying, and went on to say still more
precisely that she should never touch a penny of his
money until she came home again —not one penny.
Ann Veronica said she didn't care.
Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. “You
poor child!” he said; “don't you see the infinite folly
of these proceedings? Think! Think of the love and
affection you abandon! Think of your aunt, a second
mother to you. Think if your own mother was
alive!”
He paused, deeply moved.
“If my own mother was alive,” sobbed Ann Veronica,
“she would understand.”
The talk became more and more inconclusive and
exhausting. Ann Veronica found herself incompetent,
undignified, and detestable, holding on desperately to a
hardening antagonism to her father, quarrelling with
him, wrangling with him, thinking of repartees —almost
as if he was a brother. It was horrible, but what could
she do? She meant to live her own life, and he meant,
with contempt and insults, to prevent her. Anything
else that was said she now regarded only as an aspect of
or diversion from that.
In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things
had gone to pieces, for at the outset she had been quite
prepared to go home again upon terms. While waiting
for his coming she had stated her present and future
relations with him with what had seemed to her the
most satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had
looked forward to an explanation. Instead had come
this storm, this shouting, this weeping, this confusion
of threats and irrelevant appeals. It was not only that
her father had said all sorts of inconsistent and
unreasonable things, but that by some incomprehensible
infection she herself had replied in the same vein. He
had assumed that her leaving home was the point at
issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole
alternative was obedience, and she had fallen in with
that assumption until rebellion seemed a sacred principle.
Moreover, atrociously and inexorably, he allowed
it to appear ever and again in horrible gleams that he
suspected there was some man in the case. . . . Some
man!
And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in
the doorway, giving her a last chance, his hat in one
hand, his umbrella in the other, shaken at her to
emphasize his point.
“You understand, then,” he was saying, “you understand?”
“I understand,” said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and
flushed with a reciprocal passion, but standing up to
him with an equality that amazed even herself, “I
understand.” She controlled a sob. “Not a penny —
not one penny —and never darken your doors
again!”
